Tuesday, January 31, 2017

What do Socialists mean when we say we want to abolish money? Are we
advocating a return to a barter system,where people would, perhaps, swap
three tins of beans for one smoked haddock?

Not at all. The abolition of money means that every single person will
be able to. take freely from the store of social wealth whatever he or
she needs. We are envisaginging a society where there will be no
restrictions (such as are imposed today by the size of your wage packet
or salary cheque) on the amount of goods and services which any
individual consumes, enjoys, or uses. No exchange ,buying and selling
prices, or profits. Instead a system of free access.

But, we are often asked, can enough food ,clothing, shelter, etc. be
produced to make such a system possible? The answer is undoubtedly YES.
Human knowledge of production techniques has increased fantastically
over the last hundred years. We are now in a situation of potential
abundance.

However this potential can only be realised when the world's resources
are used rationally to benefit the World Community. The great problem at
present is that the means of producing wealth are owned and controlled
by a small minority and operated for their benefit. This results in an
artificial scarcity being maintained by a massive waste and misuse of
resources.

For example-

Deliberate underproduction to keep up prices — it is general practise
for farmers in North America and Europe to be paid by the government for
not producing food.

Completed products lie unused or are even destroyed — in London and
other cities huge offices blocks often stand empty for years while
thousands are homeless. Perfectly edible food is destroyed when it
cannot be sold profitably.

Cars, radios, televisions and many other goods have planned
obscolescence built into them — in other words they are designed to fall
apart relatively quickly so the consumer has to buy another one.

Millions of people toil away doing jobs that are totally unproductive
and are only needed in a private property system, e.g. bank clerks, shop
assistants, bus conductors, soldiers, police, lawyers, etc., and
throughout the world, millions more are unemployed.

Automative techniques that could greatly increase output (and also
eliminate, many boring jobs) are often not adopted due to it being more
profitable to use labour,

If all this waste were eliminated and the whole social effort of
production was directly geared to meeting human needs there would
certainly be enough for all.

However some people object that if goods and services were free people
would be greedy and take far more than they needed. "What would happen
if everybody in the world wanted 500 packets of cornflakes each?"
Socialists are sometimes asked. But greed is not innate. It only occurs
because there is a condition of scarcity and a desire to acquire goods
is encouraged by advertising etc.. When the normal situation is one of
abundance people have no reason to take more than they need. For example
even in today's society people do not grab and hoard a much water as
they can.

Another objection sometimes made to the case for free access is that if
people could just take what they needed nobody would work. However work
in Socialism should not be equated with the drudgery and degradation of
employment under capitalism. With boring and unpleasant jobs automated
and people having control over what is produced and how,work could be an
enjoyable and creative experience. Moreover such a society could only
exist when the mass of the population were in favour of it, and people
would, hardly be likely to act in a way that might destroy a system
which they actively supported.

This brings us to our last point. It is obvious that we are advocating a
society so different from today's that it would be impossible to
establish it merely by electing a new government,or by passing reforms
within the present structure. The only way is for the majority of the
world's working class to organise democratically and independently to
capture political power,and effect a revolutionary change by
transforming the means of production into the common property of the
world's people.

Summer
School 2017

21st
– 23rd July

Fircroft
College, Birmingham

These days, concerns about the
environment tend to get pushed into the background by issues like Brexit,
Trump’s presidency and ongoing austerity measures. But climate change,
pollution and extinctions don’t go away just because the headlines are filled
with other events. 2016 was the warmest year on record, with implications for
sea levels and habitats; more and more waste is produced for future generations
to deal with, and many hundreds of species continue to become extinct every
year.

Legislation places some restrictions on
the use of dangerous materials, hunting and waste disposal, for example.
However, legislators can only work within a system which is structured to
safeguard the interests of the wealthy elite, rather than everyone. And of
course laws don’t always prevent environmentally-damaging methods from being
used if they save or make money. Capitalism turns the natural world into a
resource to be exploited for a profit.

The Socialist Party argues that the
environment can only be managed responsibly if society as a whole is managed
co-operatively and in everyone’s interests. If our industries and services were
owned and run in common, then we would be able to produce what we need and want
in the most reasonable, sustainable way.

Our weekend of talks and discussions
looks at the current state of the environment, and its prospects for the future
we make for it.

Full residential cost (including
accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £100. The
concessionary rate is £50. Day visitors are welcome, but please book in
advance.

So, UKIP is standing their new leader, Paul Something, to contest the
Stoke Central by-election next month, to give voters there an
opportunity to kick both the government and its lame opposition.

And, why not? We all know that the Tories and Labour are no use to
us: they have a reverse Midas touch that turns everything to muck. What
could be finer than to give them a kick up the pants to get them to
smarten up their act?

Except, of course, that this is an invitation to give ourselves a
good kicking.

That's what government is there to do, to kick on behalf
of the people who own the world. A shoe on the UKIP foot would kick us
as hard as one on Labour's or the Tories'.

You can protest vote all you want, but if your call is for a
different government, all you'll ever get is kicked. Real power comes
from wealth. So long as the tiny minority own the wealth, they have the
power.

So, to have democracy, we have to organise ourselves to take hold of
that wealth, together. But, since the wealth is controlled worldwide,
we need to organise worldwide, without borders, in order to secure the
control of the world's wealth for us all. Without that, we can have no
democracy or power.

We can make a start by letting other people know that we want this
sort of revolution. In the by-election voters can do this by making a
write-in vote: put 'World Socialism!' across their ballot paper.

You don't have to vote for any wanna be leader. The more people who
stand up for Socialism, the more able we'll be to link up, and force the
change we need. Instead of scrapping to protect a tiny patch of the
world, we'll have the whole to share.

Sunday, January 29, 2017

A meeting of the leaders of far right parties this weekend proclaimed
“the return of nation-states” and “patriotism as the policy of the
future” (BBC -Link)
In reply we republish the classic socialist analysis of patriotism that
appeared in the December 1915 Socialist Standard that “The only
universal bond of nationality or patriotism that exists for us to-day
is, then, that of subjection to a single government. Patriotism in the
worker is pride in the common yoke imposed by a politically unified
ruling class.”

The Johnsonian Definition and Others

The answer depends largely upon the point of view. From one standpoint
patriotism appears as the actual religion of the modern State. From
another it is the decadence and perversion of a noble and deep-rooted
impulse of loyalty to the social unit, acquired by mankind during the
earliest stages of social life. From yet another viewpoint, that of
capitalist interests, patriotism is nothing more or less than a
convenient and potent instrument of domination.

The word itself, both etymologically and historically, has its root in
paternity. In tribal days the feeling of social solidarity, which has
now become debased into patriotism, was completely bound up with the
religion of ancestor worship. In tribal religion, as in the tribe
itself, all were united by ties of blood. The gods and their rights and
ceremonies were exclusive to the tribesmen. All strangers were rigidly
debarred from worship. The gods themselves were usually dead warriors.
Every war was a holy war. Among the ancient Israelites, for instance,
the holy Ark of Jehovah of Hosts accompanied the tribes to battle. It
was this abode or movable tomb of the ancestral deity that went with the
Jews in their march through the desert, and even to Jericho, playing an
important part in the fall of that remarkable city. All the traditions
of the Jewish religion, in fact, were identified with great national
triumphs.

The Merits of the Early Brand

Thus tribal religion was completely interwoven with tribal aspirations
and integrity. Tribal “patriotism" and religion were identical. Indeed,
without the strongest possible social bond, without a kind of
“patriotism" that implied the unhesitating self-sacrifice of the
individual for the communal existence, it would have been utterly
impossible for tribal man to have won through to civilisation. Natural
selection insured that only those social groups which developed this
supreme instinct of mutual aid could survive; the rest were crushed out
in the struggle for existence. Is it a matter for wonder if it be found
that such a magnificent social impulse, so vital to the struggling
groups of tribal man, received periodical consecration in the willing
human sacrifices so common in primitive religious ceremonial ? Bound up
with the deliberate manufacture of gods for the protection of the tribe
and its works, there is indicated a social recognition of the need for,
and value of, the sacrifice of the individual for the common weal.

This noble impulse of social solidarity is the common inheritance of
all mankind. But being a powerful social force it has lent itself to
exploitation. Therefore, with the development of class rule this great
impulse is made subordinate to the class interests of the rulers. It
becomes debased and perverted to definite anti-social ends. As soon as
the people become a slave class “the land of their fathers” is theirs no
more. Patriotism to them becomes a fraudulent thing. The “country” is
that of their masters alone. Nevertheless, the instinct of loyalty to
the community is too deep-seated to be eradicated so easily, and it
becomes a deadly weapon in the hands of the rulers against the people
themselves.

With the decay of society based on kinship, religion changed also, and
from being tribal and exclusive it became universal and propagandist.
“Patriotism” at the same time began to distinguish itself from religion.
The instinctive tribal loyalty became transformed, by the aid of
religion and the fiction of kinship, into political loyalty. In a number
of instances in political society, as in Tudor England, the struggle
for priority between religion and patriotism became so acute as to help
in the introduction of a more subservient form of religion. Thus
patriotism became emancipated from religion, and the latter became a
mere accessory to patriotism as handmaiden of class rule.

A Most Accommodating Conception

Though universal religion did not split up at the same time as the
great empire that gave it birth, patriotism did so. The latter has, in
fact, always adapted, enlarged, or contracted itself to fit the existing
political unit, whether feudal estate, village, township, county,
kingdom, republic or empire. No political form has been too absurd for
it to fill with its loyalty. No discordance of race, colour or language
has been universally effective against it.

What, then, is patriotism in essence to-day? It is usually defined as
being devotion to the land of our fathers. But which is the land of our
fathers? Our fathers came from many different parts of the world. The
political division of the world in which we live is an artificial
entity. The land has been wrested from other races. The nation they call
“ours” is the result of a conquest over original inhabitants, and over
ourselves, by successive ruling classes. Unlike the free tribesmen we
are hirelings; we possess no country.

Nationality, of which patriotism is the superstition, covers no real
entity other than that of a common oppression, a unified government. It
does not comprise any unity of race, for in no nation is there one pure
race, or anything like it. It does not cover a unity of language, for
scarcely a nation exists in which several distinct languages are not
indigenous. Nor is it any fixity of territory, for this changes from
decade to decade, while the inhabitants of the transferred territory
have to transfer their allegiance, their patriotism, to the new nation.

The Product of the Analysis

The only universal bond of nationality or patriotism that exists
for us to-day is, then, that of subjection to a single government.
Patriotism in the worker is pride in the common yoke imposed by a
politically unified ruling class. Yet it is this artificial entity that
we are called upon to honour before life itself. This badge of political
servitude is called an object worthy of supreme sacrifice. The workers
are expected to abandon all vital interests and sacrifice all they hold
dear for the preservation of an artificial nationality that is little
more than a manufactured unit of discord: a mere focus of economic and
political strife.

Ignoble Exploitation

Thus one of the noblest fruits of man’s social evolution—the impulse of
sacrifice for the social existence—is being prostituted by the
capitalist class to maintain a system of exploitation, to obtain a
commercial supremacy, and preserve or extend the boundaries of a
superfluous political entity. The workers are duped by the ruling class
into sacrificing themselves for the preservation of a politico-economic
yoke of a particular form and colour. Many so-called Socialists have
fallen headlong into this trap.

Had social solidarity developed in equal measure with the broadening of
men’s real interests, it would now be universal in character instead of
national. The wholesale mixture of races, and the economic
interdependence of the whole world, show that nationalism is now a
barrier, and patriotism, as we know it, a curse. Only the whole world
can now be rightly called the land of our fathers. Only in the service
of the people of the whole world, and not against those of any part of
it, can the instinct of social service find its highest and complete
expression. The great Socialist has pointed the way. He did not call
upon the workers of Germany alone to unite. He appealed to the toilers
of the whole world to join hands; to a whole world of labour whose only
loss could be its parti-coloured chains. And in this alone lies the
consummation of that tribal instinct of social solidarity of which
patriotism is the perverted descendant.

Something Better than Patriotism

Capitalism, therefore, stands as the barrier the destruction of which
will not only set free the productive forces of society for the good of
all, but will also liberate human solidarity and brotherhood from the
narrow confines of nationality and patriotism. Only victorious labour
can make true the simple but pregnant statement: “Mankind are my
brethren, the world is my country.” Patriotism and nationalism as we
know them will then be remembered only as artificial restrictions of
men’s sympathy and mutual help; as obstacles to the expansion of the
human mind; as impediments to the needful and helpful development of
human unity and co-operation; as bonds that bound men to slavery; as
incentives that set brothers at each other's throats.

Despite its shameless perversion by a robber class the great impulse to
human solidarity is by no means dead. Economic factors give it an ever
firmer basis, and in the Socialist movement it develops apace. Even the
hellish system of individualism, with its doctrine of every man for
himself and the devil take the hindmost, has been unable to kill it. And
in the great class struggle of the workers against the drones, of the
socially useful against the socially pernicious, in this last great
struggle for the liberation of humanity from; wage-slavery, the great
principle of human solidarity, based upon the necessities of to-day and
impelled by the deep-seated instincts of the race, will come to full
fruition and win its supreme historical battle.

A Vile Use of a Noble Sentiment

That is our hope and aspiration. For the present, however, we are
surrounded by the horrors of war added to the horrors of exploitation,
and subjected to the operation of open repression as well as to the arts
of hypocrisy and fraud. With the weakening power of religion to keep
the workers obedient, the false cult of nationality and patriotism is
being exploited to the full. Like religion, patriotism has its
vestments, its ceremonies, its sacred emblems, its sacred hymns and
inspired music; all of which are called in aid of the class interests of
our masters, and utilised desperately to lure millions to the shambles
for their benefit. Thus is an heroic and glorious social impulse
perverted and debased to the support of a régime of wage-slavery, and to
the furtherance of the damnable policy of the slave-holding class: to
divide and rule.

Saturday, January 28, 2017

It is right that the life of Joe Hill should be remembered still, for he
was a worker who sang with militant passion in favour of the interests
of his class and was framed by the American state on a murder charge for
doing so.

I.W.W. AND A.F.L.

Joe Hill was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (the
IWW or Wobblies) which was set up in the USA in 1905 in opposition to
the traditional capitalist trade unions within the American Federation
of Labor (AFL). The AFL accepted the necessity of the capitalist system
and collaborated with the bosses to make the system stable, much as the
hacks who run the British TUC do today. The Wobblies were not out to win
a 'fair deal' from capitalism (that's like turkeys trying to win a fair
deal from Christmas), but to abolish the system which thrives upon the
poverty of the wealth producers.

Wages and Profit

Abolishing capitalism, as far as the Wobblies were concerned then,
and The Socialist Party is concerned today, involves nothing less than
abolishing the wages system. No longer should men and women be the wage
(or salary) slaves of a small minority who monopolise the major
resources of the earth. To sell our mental and physical energies to
employers for a wage is a symbol of our servitude. Only when we are all
free to work voluntarily according to our abilities and take from the
common store of goods and services according to our self-defined needs
shall we be really free. Profits come from the workers being robbed of
the wealth they produce; it is time to put an end to the profit system.

That was the message of Joe Hill, and even though The Socialist Party
would have differences with the Wobblies (which our party raised at the
time) we too advocate the abolition of the wages system.

Abolishing Wages

Abolishing wage slavery? When did you hear even the most radical
figure in the Labour Party advocate that? They do not because they are a
party of capitalist reform, out to tinker with the sick effects of the
system, not to abolish it. The basic position of The Socialist Partyis
that we are out to achieve socialism and nothing less. The dream of Joe
Hill - and countless other forgotten workers who dared to reject the
inevitability of this crazy social system - must not be forgotten or
relegated to a romantic memory. Their struggle is our struggle: their
dream of a different kind of world is for us to take up and convert into
social reality.

Friday, January 27, 2017

Assuming that socialism has been established, with men and women
having free access to whatever they require, our opponents have
envisaged a continuous mad rush to the distribution centres. "Everyone
will become a glutton, universal greed will be the order of the day. "

Sorry, but we could not disagree more. Remember, socialism can only be
established when the vast majority are socialists. This presupposes a
socially and politically mature population, who will understand the
meaning and implications of socialism They will have been students of
capitalism, prepared for the social obligations of socialism.

And so we come to the absurd, hypothetical situation where we are told
that people will react and behave like lunatics. For example, can you
tell us why you would want to go to a distribution centre and take home a
hundred suits, when you know that society can produce as many suits as
it wants or needs at any time? All you would have to do when you are in
the mood for a suit would be to go and take one, or two, or three, or
more. But to indulge in hoarding within socialism is to conceive of a
reaction and a conduct that takes place under capitalism.

Capitalism is the system that instils fear and insecurity into people
making them behave in such a fashion. Change the material conditions of
the environment and the behaviour pattern of people will change also.

All physically normal people have intelligence. This intelligence,
harnessed to socialist knowledge, will assure society that the vast
majority will act with social consciousness and comprehension, and
control if necessary, when the material conditions of society have been
changed from capitalism to socialism.

We are further chided, "But who will want to work under socialism?"
Again, socialism requires socialists and socialists will be only too
anxious to give to society according to their individual ability. It
would not bother us one iota if certain individuals wanted to stay in
bed all day under socialism. We would be unconcerned because of the
realization that the vast majority will not, and cannot, act in such a
fashion. It is the nature of the human to be active and productive.
Anyone wanting to stay in bed all day within a socialist society, or who
will not share in the work, will be in a very distinct minority,
probably in need of medical attention.

It is the conditions of work under this system that people despise. The
fact that you are working for a boss, barely making ends meet; the fact
that you can be fired or out of work at short notice: the fact that
jobs can be monotonous and injurious to health. But. change the
conditions, as they will be in socialism, and people will react to work
in a completely different way.

History will show that manners, laws, customs, religion, and morality
have been in a constant state of revision and development As the
material conditions , have altered so has man's reactions. Human
behaviour is affected by the prevailing social circumstances.

Capitalism creates wars and people become warlike and will fight and
kill. The competition in the market place between capitalists seeking an
outlet for their commodities, and workers competing with each other for
jobs and-job seniority, breeds characteristics that are the antithesis
of social desirability. But, revolutionize the basis of society to
cooperation, mutual aid and – people's behaviour will undergo a
fundamental change accordingly

We find nothing at fault with human nature, only in the ideas that
people at present hold in relationship to the world in which they live.
Our accusing finger is directed at capitalism. There is nothing in human
nature that will create a barrier either for the establishment of
socialism or for its operation.

If men and women are prepared under capitalism to make the supreme
sacrifice, mistakenly of course, of giving their lives, limbs, and
children in the wars. cause they believe, erroneously, that they are
fighting for ideals such as freedom and democracy, whereas in reality
they are fighting for the property issues, markets. trade routes and
spheres of influence of their respective ruling class: then we say men
and women who will ultimately acquire socialist knowledge will have the
human qualities to do whatever is necessary to make socialism work.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

'Paul Mason and Postcapitalism'

This talk will examine Paul Mason's book 'Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future'.

Mason discusses some of the changes that are taking place under capitalism: the massive growth in IT, co-operative production, the possibility of free and abundant goods.

Is the emerging information economy compatible with a market economy? What will be the impact of the automation of semi-skilled jobs? Mason proposes Project Zero: a gradual transition to a post-capitalist society, where more and more will be produced for free, but there will still be money, banks and markets. Is this really a viable alternative, and is it preferable to a money-free and class-free world based on free access?

We advocate Socialism, a system of society without wages, money,
prices, or profits. In brief, a non-capitalist society. The means of
production will be owned in common by society as a whole and
democratically administered. The goods produced will be available to
everyone. The keynote of Socialism is summed up in the phrase "from each
according to ability, to each according to need".

Socialism is necessarily a universal conception. It is impossible for
Socialism to exist in one country while the rest of the world remains
based on capitalist competition and profit seeking. The establishment of
Socialism throughout the world will mean the elimination of the
capitalist struggles for markets and profits, and therefore will
eliminate the chief cause of war.

Socialism is an administration of things and not a government of
people. It is concerned with production and distribution for use only.
It is a society where the full and free development of the individual
shall be the ruling principle provided the individual does not interfere
destructively with the wishes of the majority. Order and harmony is to
replace law and coercion. The act of establishing Socialism must be a
revolutionary act ― the capture of political control for the purpose of
transferring the ownership of the means of life from the present
capitalist class to society as a whole. The workers must be fully
conscious of what they are doing and the majority of the population must
be in favour of the change to Socialism.

The basic feature of capitalism is that on the one hand the means of
production are owned by a minority of the population ― the capitalist
class, while on the other hand the vast majority of the population ― the
working class are wage or salaried workers who do not work for
themselves but for the capitalist owners. Another important feature of
capitalism is that production is carried on primarily for the purpose of
making a profit.

The source of this profit comes from the exploitation
of the working class by the capitalists. Depressions, economic
insecurity, inequality of incomes, unemployment, and the possibility of
another catastrophic world war ― this is what capitalism has to offer
the working class. It does not offer a solution in the quest for peace,
security and abundance nor the free development of the individual.

While not opposing the efforts of the workers to obtain more of what
they can under capitalism, as a Socialist organization we do not
advocate reforms or engage in the struggle for them. Understanding that
the solution for the workers is not in trying to make capitalism work in
their interest, we do not dissipate our energies in trying to reform
capitalism, but concentrate on the task of preparing socialists to
introduce Socialism and abolish capitalism.

The relationships of wage, labour, capital, and market economy exists
in every country in the world today. Capitalism is international. No
government can lead the way to Socialism, it merely carries on
capitalism in the interest of capitalism. Nationalization is
state-controlled capitalism and state capitalism is not socialism. We
contend that capitalism cannot be reformed in the interest of the whole
of society, we contend also that it can be superseded by a better,
higher social order. It is to this end ― that of changing the economic
system we direct our efforts. Capitalism has long since served its
historic mission of introducing a socially necessary technological age.

Let us free this modern technology from the shackles of the profit
motive and allow it to develop its energies for the sole use and benefit
of humankind.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Exterminating human beings seems to be an unintelligent way of running a
society, especially when it is considered that the main purpose humans
live in society is to ensure their survival. One would think that any
system of society that ceases to ensure survival would meet with the
disapproval of its members. But there are a number of currently popular
arguments that are intended to justify such legalised murder.

1. THE ECONOMIC ARGUMENT. War can be profitable for one or other of the sides.
Wars are not fought between the owners and non-owners of wealth, but
between one set of owners and another. Every war in the history of
capitalism has been fought, directly or indirectly, to secure markets
and raw materials. Wars are squalid battles between capitalist countries
over who owns what is in and on the Earth.

2. THE MORAL/RELIGIOUS ARGUMENT. The enemy in war is invariably immoral, valueless and ungodly and thus deserves to be killed.
One of the early members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain said
that the sight of the priests blessing the guns in 1915 made him first
consider becoming a socialist. In the last world war the messengers of
God blessed the aeroplanes of both the British and the Nazis before they
went off to carry out their respective holy missions of murder.
Most workers accept morality because they feel powerless to reject the
guidance of their rulers. The church encourages this sense of impotence
by telling us that not only is it sinful to kill, but it is unpatriotic
and sinful not to kill when our masters so decide.

3. THE ANTROPOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. Humans like fighting because they are naturally aggressive.
Anthropologists who have asserted that homo sapiens is essentially
aggressive have been opposed by many empirical observations. Where there
is harmony of interests, non-aggressive, co-operative people are found.
It is not human nature for humans to wish to kill one another, and if
it is why do they have to wait for a legal decree before war can
commence? The anti-social conception of humans is not indicative of
inherent human characteristics, but of a system that forces people to
act inhumanely and, in that sense, unnaturally. The myth about the Glory
of War has been somewhat exposed by the accounts that have followed all
wars are not about bravery and heroism, but about the indignity of
plunder and the inhumanity of slaughter.

4. THE POLITICAL ARGUMENT. Murder is right when it is in defence of the Queen/President/State/State-to-be.
This is the least convincing argument to attempt to justify war. No
doubt there is a considerable number of people in Britain who would be
prepared to lay down their lives for the Queen. Perhaps it would be a
solution if they were simply to lay down their lives and be given
honorary peerages; this would at least prevent involving those of us who
do not want to die on behalf of monarchs, nations or religion. Islamic
fanatics, left-wing insurrectionists and nationalists are not only
claiming the right to die for their cause, but are demanding that other
workers die with them. A system of society that compels workers to fight
for a country that they do not own is urgently in need of being
removed. If there is a nuclear war – or even a serious conventional war –
millions of workers would die in defence of countries that are not and
cannot be theirs.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

On
25 January Scots people round the world celebrate Burns night, piping
in the haggis along with the neeps and tatties (turnips and
potatoes), and all the rest of it, to celebrate Burns’ birthday.
What do socialists think of Burns? Is it possible that Burns could
be called a socialist?

The
answer must be ‘No’. In the eighteenth century the
co-operative, friendly, work-together society that socialists strive
for had not yet been crystallized into a political programme; the
aggressive, snarling, stab-in-the-back society that capitalism tries
to impose on us all was triumphant, or about-to-be-triumphant,
everywhere in the world. And Burns was a Scots nationalist (‘Scots
wha hae wi’ Wallace bled . . .). Yet there are many facets of
Burns’ poetry, and of Burns’ philosophy, that must strike a chord
with all socialists (and it is well worth making the effort, though
sometimes it’s not easy, to understand Burns’ Ayrshire dialect of
our common language.) For example, Burns was always (just like
socialists) able to see the larger significance of what appeared to
be small, unimportant events – to see the greater meaning lying
behind something apparently trivial. There are two well-known
examples.

In
church one day Burns sat near a well-to-do lady, dressed in her
Sunday finery, seemingly pleased with her smart appearance. But
then Burns saw a louse, openly crawling up her fashionable bonnet.
Burns enjoys the joke, pretending to tell the louse to clear out, and
get its dinner off some ragged beggar instead; but then the contrast
between the lady in her posh clothes, and the “winks and
finger-ends” which showed that other people had seen the louse,
leads to a thought of deeper moment:

‘Oh
wad some Power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us, It wad frae mony a blunder
free us, An' foolish notion; What airs in dress and gait wad lea’e us, And e’en devotion!’

Then
there was the time when Burns was out ploughing one December – he
had a small farm – and suddenly realized that he had destroyed a
mouse’s hide-out, which it had constructed with much labour to
shelter itself from the winter weather (“ That wee bit heap o’
leaves an’ stibble, Has cost thee mony a weary nibble”). The
poet apologizes for breaking ‘Nature’s social union’, and goes
on:

Then
Burns added an extra verse. In some ways, he thought, it could be
said the mouse was better off, being only concerned with the present;
while the poet could see nothing to please him in either the past or
the future. ‘But Och! I backward cast my e’e, On prospects
drear! An’ forwa rd, tho I canna see, I guess and fear!’

Burns
had little time for the social set-up of his day. In The
Twa Dogs,
Burns describes a landlord:

‘Our
laird gets in his racked rents, His coals, his kane, and all his stents, [kane - fowls paid as rent,
stents – dues] He rises when he likes
himsel’, His flunkies answer
at his bell;’

He
travels in a horse-drawn coach, and his silk purse is full of gold
pieces. As for the landlord’s factor or land-agent, when the rent
is due he tyrannizes over the impecunious small tenants:

Then
in The
Cotter’s Saturday Night
Burns praises ‘an honest man’, while dismissing his supposed
social superiors – ‘Princes and lords are but the breath of
kings’:

‘What
is a lordling’s pomp! A cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of
human kind,
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin’d!’

Perhaps
Burns’ philosophy is most clearly expressed in A
man’s a man for a’ that.

‘The
rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
The Man’s
the gowd [gold] for a’ that.’

As
for the upper class:

‘Ye
see yon birkie [bighead], ca’d [called] a lord, Wha struts, and
stares, and a’ that; Tho’ hundreds
worship at his word,
He’s but a coof
[fool] for a’ that: For a’
that, and a’ that,
His ribband, star [decorations], and a’ that, The man of independent mind,
He
looks and laughs at a’ that’.

Then
Burns sums it up:

‘Then
let us pray [earnestly desire] that come it may,
(As come it will for a’
that,) That Sense and Worth,
o’er all the earth,
Shall bear the gree, [be
victorious], an’ a’ that. For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s coming yet for a’
that, That Man to Man, the
world o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’
that. ‘

If
you take “Man” to be all humans, or if you add “Woman to Woman
shall sisters be”, it’s a sentiment socialists share.

The Wakefield Socialist History Group Robert Burns and other radical poetsSaturday January 28 1.00pmThe Red Shed.18 Vicarage Street South

Wakefield WF1

"It's coming yet, for a' that, that man to man the world o'er, shall brithers be for a' that."

Unlike Byron and Shelley, Burns had only the most basic education and his early life was one of poverty and toil, having been born into a family of poor tenant farmers.

“Here’s freedom to him that wad read,

Here’s freedom to him that wad write!

There’s nane ever feared that the Truth should be heard,

But they who the Truth wad indite.”

Burns lived through the momentous events of the French revolution that had an influence across all of Europe. Burns greeted the French Revolution with enthusiasm.

Burns was an active member of the Dumfries branch of The Friends of the People. Formed in 1792, this was the first organisation in Scottish history to openly call for universal suffrage for all men, rich or poor It was led by the radical lawyer Thomas Muir who was convicted of sedition and sentenced to transportation to Australia. Burns remained a staunch republican till his death.

“you can’t know Burns unless you can hate the Lockharts and all the estimable bourgeois and upper classes as he really did” DH Lawrence

For some Rabbie Burns was Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Che Guevara all rolled into one. He travelled around Scotland and is known to have fathered 12 children and is estimated to have over six hundred living descendants. Burns the rock star in his day, yet like so many of those he died as poor as he was brought up and hounded by creditors.

Monday, January 23, 2017

There
is the world we live in and the world we could live in as soon as we
decide to make the change..

THE
WORLD WE LIVE IN. For
most of those 'fortunate' enough to have
a job, life is, at best, a pale, hire-purchased imitation of what is
taken for granted all the time by the small group of people who own
enough wealth to enable them to live by profit, rent
or interest. In
the wider world outside, the capitalist world of which we are an
integral part, our problems are
duplicated and magnified a thousand-fold. Multi
millions of people are unemployed, homeless, or slum-ridden. Human
rights are a sick joke in most areas of the world. Strikes, on the
one hand, by workers fighting
to defend their mean living standards and, on the other hand, by
capitalists withholding their capital when faced with falling
profits, abound. Crime, social alienation, waste, wars and
preparation for wars. Almost
every single second a human being dies from hunger. Every single day
there is, at least, one war being fought
somewhere.... The list of horrors is endless and these obscenities
exist throughout the allegedly civilised world – under governments
that claim to be 'socialist' or 'communist' as well as under
governments openly espousing capitalism.

THE
WORLD WE COULD LIVE IN. The alternative to the present form of social
organisation,
and the evils it generates, is world socialism. We accept that the
term 'socialism'
has been defiled by politicians and political parties who have
applied it to their schemes
and hopes for reforming capitalism these schemes have
failed utterly and their failure has not only meant the continuation
of capitalism and its inevitable
miseries – sometimes made worse by authoritarian government; it
has, also, provided
the capitalist class and its political apologists and pensioned press
with a weapon to contuse
the great majority of workers and convince them that Socialism has
been tried and has been seen to fail.

THE
WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT STANDS SOLELY FOR SOCIALISM: we do not
contend
with other political parties for the opportunity to form governments
pledged to 'reform'
capitalism. On the contrary, our purpose is the total abolition of
capitalism and we affirm
that, whatever the political complexion of a party running capitalism
may be, whatever the
amount of wisdom or sincerity to be found in its membership or
leaders, capitalism will still
give rise to poverty, insecurity, war and all the other evils which
afflict our world today.

WHAT,
THEN, DO WE MEAN BY WORLD SOCIALISM? We mean a world-wide system of
common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth
production and distribution. We mean a world wherein wealth will be
produced solely to satisfy human needs,
a world where every human being will have free and equal access to
the things they need.
A world where ownership of humanity's means of existence will be
banished along with class, money, wages, and all the other wasteful
and useless trappings of capitalism.